


For Mind and Memory is the Soul of Man

by Quillori



Category: Cthulhu Mythos - H. P. Lovecraft
Genre: Gen, Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-23
Updated: 2013-12-23
Packaged: 2018-01-05 19:48:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,223
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1097912
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quillori/pseuds/Quillori
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An ordinary man goes about his ordinary life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	For Mind and Memory is the Soul of Man

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Persiflager](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Persiflager/gifts).



I first caught sight of him on the train, all muffled up in hat and scarf and coat with upturned collar. It was a cold day, to be sure, but something about him seemed off: the stiffness of his movements, perhaps, or the immobility of his face, nor was his voice when he spoke briefly with the conductor quite what one would expect, but I didn’t dwell on the matter, for I had business of my own to attend to. All the same, I couldn’t quite forget him, and afterwards I kept thinking I saw him from the corner of my eye, walking beside me down a busy street, or half-hidden in a crowd, although when I turned to look, he was always gone.

On one occasion I had stopped at a booksellers to purchase a birthday present for my nephew, who I thought would appreciate a particular volume I myself had loved at his age. Just as I was about to enter the shop I thought I saw him crossing the street towards me, although when I looked again there was only a woman with a perambulator and two elderly gentleman, neither of whom had any noticeable peculiarity. Again, while I was browsing, I thought he peered in at the window, and even that he was examining a shelf at the back, half hidden in shadows, while I paid for the book. Luckily he didn’t seem to follow me home, and I spent a pleasant evening rereading my nephew’s book. Almost a pleasant evening – as is so often the case, reading as an adult I discerned a level of unpleasantness that I hadn’t comprehended as a child: several incidents in particular stood out to me now as having quite disagreeable overtones. I reflected that perhaps I shouldn’t give it to the boy after all.

My nephew’s birthday approached, and looking for another present had slipped my mind. Having nothing to hand and no time to shop, I leafed through the book again, to see if it were really so bad, but I couldn’t find any of the passages I had taken a dislike to. I could only think I had been tired that night and out of spirits, and had fancied meanings that weren’t there. Though really, it was not so much that I no longer saw the disagreeableness, as that I couldn’t now find the sections in question.

About that time, I began to sleep badly, my dreams haunted by quite normal scenes of daily life, all of which were wrong in some subtle way I couldn’t quite identify, and disquieting. Those wretched passages would appear, too, not in the book, but written in newspapers, or in the middle of a letter from my sister, although when I woke I could never bring to mind quite what it was they were about.

During the day, the man still appeared sometimes at the edge of my vision, and it seemed to me he had been joined by friends, for now I saw that same lack of expression, that same disjointed way of moving in men younger and older than I judged him to have been, and in the occasional woman. Only, however, in those I glimpsed briefly; the odd time I thought I saw it in someone with whom I could speak, the illusion dissipated at once, and nothing strange remained.

My employer, noticing my distraction, and feeling I looked worn down, told me to take a day off, and I thought to visit one of my favourite picnicking places, where there is a comfortable bench overlooking a green valley. Many happy hours have I spent there, watching the busy farm work bustling below, or turning my eyes upward to the wooded slopes above me, where the forest birds flit from tree to tree. But I must have taken a wrong turn – how I do not know, for I know that route as well as I know anything, but nonetheless I must have done so, for I couldn’t find it. The next day at my desk, when business was slow, I found myself sketching out the view of the valley, but without any great success, for the precise positioning and number of the farms in the valley now escaped me, and the angle of the slope. Even the type of tree predominant there, and whether the bench was stone or wood seemed unwontedly hazy.

The strange people seemed to cluster thick that evening, crowding around me on every side so that they were in the majority, though if I looked hard at any one of them, the strangeness dissipated, and a normal man or woman stood in their place, glaring at me for my lack of manners. Several trains had been cancelled, and my normal station closed, so I had a long walk to anywhere from which I could catch a train home, and I lost my way several times, for the nights were drawing in and the sickly light of the street lamps made everything look altered and unfamiliar.

I was cold and down at heart when I suddenly saw him again, standing waiting to cross the street, and this time it seemed he had failed to notice me, for he didn’t slip away out of sight, but remained standing there as I approached stealthily. Gripping him by the shoulder I swung him about to face me, and saw his face was an unnatural pasty white, like a shop-window mannequin. He said nothing, and made no move to free himself or to remonstrate with me, and seized by a type of frightened anger I began to shake him harder and harder, until the mask that was his face was knocked right off, falling to the street with a loud clatter.

Still he said nothing, and I saw the space where the mask had been was empty air. Aghast, I let go of his shoulder, and he calmly bent to retrieve his face, fitted it back and continued on his way. I turned this way and that, appealing to the other passers-by to confirm they had seen this thing too, and that I was not losing my mind, but they continued on their various ways, paying no heed either to him or to me, and I saw they too were nothing more than masks and clothes, with no substance to them, moving by habit, empty of character or meaning.

I looked in every direction, trying to find a normal, living person, but there were none to be seen: not crossing the street, or upon the pavement, or driving in carriages, or reflected in the shop windows, or sitting begging by the lamppost. Nowhere. I looked again, concentrating as hard as I was able, but still the streets were full of empty simulacra, and the windows reflected the same scene: hordes of unreal figures, and not a single living man. And yet, I realised, heart pounding, there should be _one_ man, for where was my reflection? I hurried towards the nearest window, and there I was, indeed, moving stiffly and disjointedly, my face stiff and white. White with shock, I told myself, white with fear, and stiff likewise. But as I jerked my hand up to my face, the mask came readily away from me too, with nothing left behind it worth remembering.

**Author's Note:**

> Based on a couple of [Lovecraft's unused ideas](http://www.lapetiteclaudine.com/archives/011196.html).


End file.
